1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to a method and apparatus for reducing the signaling load in mobile telecommunications networks, especially for reducing the signaling load to a mobile terminal over the radio interface.
2. Description of the Related Art
In the current Universal Mobile Telephone System (UMTS), for each radio connection between a mobile and the network, it is necessary to specify a large number of parameters, such as the parameters relating to channel coding, to the physical layer, to radio bearers, and to the physical transport and logical channels for the connection, for both the uplink and the downlink. As many as two hundred parameters may need to be specified, which allows a very high level of flexibility to suit the needs of individual users. At present, the set up of each radio link is modular and the full set of parameters is sent by the network to the mobile for layers 1 to 3.
The arrangement is shown in FIG. 1 in which several items of User Equipment UE1 to UEn, indicated at 10(1) to 10(n), are radio-linked to Node B, reference 12. The Node B 12 is one of several Node Bs controlled by a Radio Network Controller (RNC) 14 which is connected to the Core Network (CN) 16. The Node B 12 and the RNC 14 together form the UMTS Terrestrial Radio Access Network (UTRAN).
On set-up of each UE 10, the Node B12 sends an individual Radio Resource Control (RRC) message, indicated by the arrows A(1) . . . A (n) to that UE. The RRC message may, for example, be the “RB Set Up” message defined in 3GPPStandard.
A disadvantage of the current arrangement is that radio resource is wasted as the UTRAN sends the set-up message over the air interface each time a mobile connects to the network.